Agostino Riitano: craftsman of the imagination – Stefano Liberti

After he participated in the artistic direction of the project for Matera European Capital of Culture 2019, many Italian cities contacted him to prepare an application dossier. “Then one day the mayor of Procida phoned me. I thought about it one night. The next morning I called him back and said: let’s try ”. It was the thrill of the impossible undertaking that stimulated him. “All the other cities had a chance to win. Procida, on the other hand, was utopia: the small island that aspired to become the capital. Well, I liked the idea of ​​trying to make utopia triumph ”.

Riitano is one of the most appreciated Italian cultural entrepreneurs. He has an endless curriculum, which includes urban and cultural regeneration projects in which he has participated in Italy and abroad, especially in Central America. He defines himself as a “Vesuvian by origin, a nomad by vocation and a manager by attitude”. But it is the first characteristic that prevails over the others. Riitano is as volcanic as the town that saw it born, Torre del Greco. It’s as hectic as Naples, the city where he grew up professionally. If he moves relentlessly, animated by a creative fury that makes him generate projects and ideas, his mental center of gravity remains planted between the gulf and Vesuvius. An anecdote well describes this side of his character: one night, when he was living in Matera, he felt a desire for his places so urgent that he called a taxi and was taken to Naples. “I went to regenerate for a moment,” he says. He was too urgent: he couldn’t wait until the next morning and more simply take a train.

As we cross the center of Naples to go to the restaurant he has chosen for lunch – “a simple but true place, sheltered from the tourist factory” – people stop him to compliment him or propose more or less abstruse events to do in Procida. “A few days ago he called me a guy who recently got out of jail who wanted to organize a show in the former Bourbon prison on the island. He said: the former inmate in the former prison is a bomb. Among the proposals I receive every day, it is one of the least odd ”.

Working for Procida means returning to the experiences of the origins, to its training, to the redevelopment projects in the Sanità district, to the theater workshops in Scampia. And to that house that he has never really abandoned, to the center of gravity suspended between the sea and the volcano. To the cosmopolitan Naples of the Institute for Philosophical Studies, to the teeming and mestizo city that nestles in the alleys of the Spanish neighborhoods, to the port and the Mediterranean sea, a place of meetings, exchanges, contaminations.

We holed up in the restaurant, a little closet wedged in a lane behind via Toledo: the Taverna del Gourmet has a few wooden tables and a handwritten menu with the great classics of Neapolitan cuisine, from pasta with potatoes and provola to macaroni alla Genovese, from stuffed anchovies with broccoli. Giusy and her father Gaetano manage it as the living room of the house: the customers are almost all regulars, as is Riitano. Taken by the organization of the events that will open in the spring, he is visibly tired. He sleeps two to three hours a night, overwhelmed by adrenaline. The tension that runs through him is betrayed only by the enthusiasm with which he throws himself on the bread and on the tasty meatballs with sauce that he has ordered.

He tells me how he put together the dossier for the candidacy, how he convinced the commission to choose Procida as the capital of culture: “We have exploited insularity, which is in fact a condition of the whole human race, as a resource instead of as a an obstacle. We have networked other islands in Italy and around the world and coined the slogan of the candidacy: culture does not isolate ”.

Riitano considers himself an “artisan of the imagination”, as the title of one of his book-manifesto states. He is convinced that culture must be interpreted in a different way in every place, find a strength that is linked to the territory, involve the inhabitants personally. “The craftsman of the imaginary is a social aggregator. He is a person who sees the potential of communities and favors their development ”. Based on these beliefs, he has promoted the collective creation of successful projects in Matera and is also organizing them in Procida. “More than 50 percent of the program wants to be the result of cooperation processes, in which the inhabitants are an active part”.

Riitano prefers to avoid big events, which are difficult to manage and leave little on the territory. “We didn’t do it in Matera and I certainly don’t want to do it in Procida: transform these places into temporary Disneyland. The program is made up of many small events of the highest quality, in which we network knowledge, practices, passions “. For this reason the experience of Procida also wants to be the proposal of another cultural model, no longer based on cities of art and tourist monoculture. “We sent the message that anyone can do it, as long as they know how to enhance their specific characteristics. And I am happy that many small towns have applied for the 2024 edition ”.

Today the imaginary craftsman who became director has a new challenge ahead of him: to convince everyone that culture not only does not isolate, but contributes to creating deep, supportive and lasting relationships at the service of communities. In short, the utopia of Procida can be replicated and become an example for innovative cultural activities and processes.